Dr. Arezou Azad

Biography

Arezou Azad is a historian specializing in medieval Islamicate cultures in the East, focusing on the dynamics of Islam from the 7th century CE to the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. She is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford. Azad previously held the role of Junior Professor Chair in Arts and Heritage at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) in Paris. Her book, 'Sacred Landscape Medieval Afghanistan', published by Oxford in 2013, examines how the multicultural region of Balkh, Afghanistan, known for its magnificent Buddhist monasteries, transitioned into a major Islamic cultural hub. Furthermore, she produced a fully commentated translation of the local medieval history of Balkh alongside Edmund Herzig and Ali Mir-Ansari, released in 2020 as part of the distinguished Gibb Memorial Trust series. Currently, she is completing further works, including studies on the Bamiyan and Firuzkuh papers concerning medieval Afghanistan, and she is collaborating with Pejman Firoozbakhsh on a translation of the history of the Barmakids. Azad leads several research-focused projects, such as the PersDoc project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Go.Local project funded by the European Research Council, concentrating on medieval documents, literary sources, and material culture related to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Additionally, she has previously served as a lecturer in medieval history at the University of Birmingham from 2013 to 2019. Azad was born and raised in Germany and has served as a UN peacekeeper in various hotspots worldwide.

Research Interests

Experience